Ten Minutes
by E Kelly
Summary: The life of Rachel Dawes - her struggles, her loves, and her courage at the end.
1. Chapter 1

**Ten Minutes**

By E Kelly

Disclaimer – definitely still don't own any of this.

A/N – Rachel Dawes is a great character who was criminally underwritten in both movies, so…

* * *

_10:00_

_Harvey..._

_9:59_

_9:58_

_9:57_

_He can't die. He can't die for me. He can't die because a selfish man loves me – it isn't fair..._

* * *

I remember the Manor when it was full of life and parties that Bruce and I were banished from at nine o'clock. We would sneak to the top of the stairs and crouch, peeking through the balustrade, watching the grownups in their fancy clothes. If Mom caught us, we were sent straight to bed. If Alfred caught us, we were sent to bed – after he'd given us a light and crusty cream puff, or a decadently chocolate petit fours. I remember the Manor the day Mom came to me and said we were leaving it. It was only two weeks after the murders, and even though the house's beauty was undiminished, the pall of isolation made every inch of it look grayer. There wasn't going to be any more entertaining at Wayne Manor, you see, and with only Bruce to look after, two full time servants were a bit much. I didn't understand, of course. I was only nine. No… even now I don't understand it. Maybe it's just my own arrogance to think that if we – if I – had still been around, it would have made a difference. Not that I was removed from Bruce's life completely. Alfred arranged outings, to museums, the aquarium, the park. He invited Mom and I to visit for friendly dinners, afternoons in which Bruce and I chased each other through the gardens as if things were the same.

They weren't.

We took each other to our first school dances, me, standing awkward and fidgety while Mom took our picture before Alfred drove us over to the public junior high where I went to school, Bruce formally offering me his arm, already self-possessed in a way that the kids at my school found odd and intimidating. At his school, I was afraid of feeling shabby, and when I told him that, my face hot, Bruce just frowned. Go buy whatever you want, he said. Alfred will take care of it. I kept it a secret from Mom, but I did exactly that, and hid the expensive dress in my closet for years.

When he turned sixteen, Bruce bought a Ferrari and took me driving. He laughed while he frightened me by driving at insane speeds down the long, lonely roads of the Palisades. His laugh was a hollow sound, lost amidst the roar of the engine. I told him I hated it, hated him being like this. He shrugged, wearing that cold, controlled smile like a cloak. He took me downtown to the glass towers and velvet restaurants, but I shook my head and pulled against him and we ended up in a tiny pizza joint with bare brick walls at a dirty counter eating messy slices. He made me laugh with his off-hand comments on the realities of human fallibility (we were watching another young couple and the boy was trying so hard to impress his girl, the way Bruce never tried to impress me). I snorted soda up my nose and choked and he put a hand on my back, brushed the hair back from my face as my eyes watered.

I was already in love with him.

* * *

I don't want to think about this now, but panic is stealing my self-control. My wrists ache from the ropes and the spiky smell of gasoline is rolling my stomach. I try to scream again, the little glowing light on the phone taunting me for I know it's only there to make things worse. Harvey is at the other end of that line – brave, noble Harvey who knows how to crusade for justice within the bounds of rationality, Harvey who I understand, who has vulnerabilities, who was afraid of those rich idiots that were just tools that Bruce manipulated. Harvey, who is going to die tonight. The tears taste bitter on my lips.

* * *

You could almost call what Bruce and I did in high school dating, but it wasn't really. Bruce didn't care about girls, he didn't really seem to care about anybody except for Alfred, and me. No matter how they threw themselves at him, he maintained the ability to acknowledge it without letting it affect him. It wasn't just the money that attracted them. Something about the brutality of his good looks and the emptiness behind his eyes was irresistible. I harbored the secret pleasure of knowing none of them could get close. Not like I could. I was his one confidant, his one real friend. I'd been there when it happened, the great tragedy that others whispered about when they saw him. Nothing could make me angrier than to hear a stranger make light of it, of him, and the kids at my school did it just to provoke me sometimes – out of jealousy, out of fascination. It happened more often whenever Bruce came to pick me up from school, waiting by the curb out front of the building, leaning against the sports car, unconcerned by the stares. He was used to being stared at. Some people wanted to befriend me, thinking they could get close to his rarified world, or the ghostly drama that clung to him. I was unfailingly unkind to anyone who tried.

Sometimes when we sat alone on the balcony of the Manor, I wanted him with a virginal ache that would make my legs seize and my lips tremble. But he never even kissed me. When he left for Harvard I walked through grey days, plodding through my courses, thinking I would never know brightness again. That was funny now, sadly funny, to think I once imagined Bruce as the sunny spot in my life.

I finished undergrad and he drifted from Harvard to Columbia, leaving in his wake a reputation for being… not dissolute, not lazy, not – anything. To most people he was noticeable simply for being rich. He didn't bother finishing classes. I worried about him, I took two a.m. calls from him, and there was a whispered intimacy in that, for his long silences would draw me out and I would find myself confessing all my hopes and fears for the future. He, on the other hand, didn't seem to know there was such a thing as the future. Maybe, for him, then, there could be only the past. By the time I got out of law school, he was finally starting a graduate program at Princeton, but he was still uninterested, just … floating.

I was the opposite. I was flush with pride and the excitement of youthful idealism. Mom thought I was mad for shooting for the DA's office. Not because that was ambitious, but because it was useless, in Gotham. No one believed a difference could be made in this city. No one, it seemed, but me.

* * *

I gather my tattered courage around me again and scream, "Harvey!", and wait through pounding heartbeats. Nothing. The clock ticks down – 9 minutes. My eyes close. Ramirez's voice haunts me, the way it trembled as she told me, _he… he said… Joker said, it'd be one of you or the other. He told me to tell you, "I'm going to let your friend choose." That's all. That's all he said._ She whispered her last words to me, _I'm so sorry…_

My eyes close. Your friend. Your friend will choose. The words had turned my blood to ice, for they were Harvey's death sentence. I wonder if I am flooded with these memories because I am searching for the point at which I could have stepped outside of this insanity, that I could have disengaged myself from Bruce Wayne forever – I tried so many times...


	2. Chapter 2

Eight Minutes

The Chill case was agony. I knew what it meant to Bruce, and a single look from dark eyes when he saw me after it had begun – it was Christmas, Alfred had asked me by – that single look was a punch in the stomach, even though he spoke to me as if nothing was wrong. I wasn't a blushing teenager any more, my mettle tested and strengthened in criminal depositions and office politics. I cornered him, demanded that he say what he was thinking. But I couldn't get past the mask. Then, six months later, when I came to take him to the trial, in the kitchen he smiled at me, and talked to me like we'd not spent a single day apart. His pain was palpable, it had broken down his wall, at least for a moment. He seemed to be begging me for something ("I _need_ you to understand…") and all I wanted was to put my arms around him, hold him close, tell him how, when I went home at night through Gotham's decaying streets and landed exhausted on my couch, it was still his gentle humor that I craved, even as rare and unexpected as it had become, in bed at night as I turned over and felt my t-shirt slide across my skin, it was still his hands that I thought of.

Judge Faden's voice referring to him so obliquely, "A member of the Wayne family," as if there was still a Wayne family and not just him alone, cut me. It took every ounce of professionalism I ever possessed not to run after him when he left the courtroom.

What happened after that – even now I can barely stand to think of it. The way he stared at Chill's twitching body, the way I hammered him – I was trying to reach him, after that moment at the Manor he seemed to be fading away, armoring himself against me, against everything. He was my best friend too, and I had needed him for so long, especially now that I had sunk deep into Gotham's realities.

And then he showed me the gun. My anger and disappointment flared hot and bright and I struck him, and again. He deserved it, but it didn't matter. It doesn't matter. I still can't fathom just how much none of it could have mattered.

He disappeared. Even now, seeing death a hundred times over wired to a clock running down everything I care about in life, the very thought of those years crumples me like a collapsing wall. To not know what had happened after he left my car, to think I was responsible, to see Alfred's quiet grief even as he refused to give up hope. I was with him when he faced down Bill Earle over declaring Bruce dead. It was almost absurdly funny to watch Earle, who was unable to grasp why anyone would fight so hard not to inherit tens of billions of dollars.

We arrived back at the Manor and the dense, acidic silence of the monumental architecture made me scared for Alfred's sanity if he stayed there. Go somewhere, I urged him. Spend the rest of your life seeing the world.

"I've seen the world, Rachel," he said, his wise, tired eyes piercing me, "and that is why I am quite happy to stay here."

I nodded, looking down, trying to swallow past the black tar bile that had eaten my stomach hours ago and now swelled my throat. "Are you…" the tears were coming now, rolling silent and cold down my cheeks, "are you going to have a service?"

Alfred lifted my chin, just as he had done when I was a child who'd skinned my knee on the garden flagstones. He smiled kindly, "No."

I wanted to touch his faith but as I wandered the Manor all I could feel was the emptiness and stillness of death. I bit back the urge to scream, just to break the silence. I ended up sobbing softly on Bruce's bed, on the field of soft cushioning where we'd leapt and flown until we were dizzy, where we'd lain on our stomachs, touching greasy fingers in the popcorn bowl between us, watching the adventures of heroes and villains with wide eyes and oh-so-knowing sarcastic comments and bad teenage jokes. I cried until I had no strength left, and I curled around his pillow, his pillow that I used to bury my face in when he rolled off the bed to go to the bathroom. It'd been so long that there was no trace of his scent left. When I came downstairs with mussed hair and ravaged eyes, Alfred hugged me, held me tightly – and offered me soup, "your favorite, my tomato basil," and I laughed softly at the painful familiarity of it.

I moved on then. I had to in order to survive. There was Gotham and the mob, and they gave me what I needed – a center to build my life around, a crusade, a lost cause. There was Carl, though it didn't last long. There were a few other men, but they could rarely stay interested in the face of my 80 hour weeks and non-stop shop talk. We were going around with Falcone again (and again and again) in an endless circle that was just part of doing business as far as the mobster was concerned. I stopped by Carl's office to drop off the briefs that I thought might keep the file on the Zsasz case open, and Carl, half-grinning asked me, "Have you seen him yet?"

I frowned and looked at him questioningly. "Who?"

"Wayne. It's all over the news. He's back."

I blinked once, turned on my heel and went straight to my office where I slid down the door and sat on the floor in my nice skirt, my knees up close to my chest, like I was eight years old again. I released a slow, hurting breath, a breath I had been holding for seven years and I pressed a trembling hand to my mouth. _He's back_. It echoed in my mind – not _he's alive_, because to most people it was just prurient celebrity gossip, but for me, the only man I'd ever really loved had just come back from the dead.

When I could think again, I pulled myself up, started to turn on the radio and decided it wouldn't do, grabbed my purse and practically ran down the stairs to the café on the ground floor of the office building across the street. I got a cup of coffee, my eyes glued to the tv set hanging in the corner. My heart was beating so hard it was making me feel sick and the coffee scalded my tongue but I barely noticed because there he was. I could only stare, speechless. It was a short clip, maybe five seconds long, of him leaving Wayne Tower and ducking into the car door which Alfred held open for him. With fumbling fingers I pulled out my cell and dialed.

"Wayne Manor."

"Alfred," I had meant to sound joyful, but the word came out weak and breathless. "Is it true? Is he – ?"

"He is indeed, Ms. Dawes."

I sat down hard. "Can I… is he available?"

"I'm afraid … well, he's requested to remain… a bit underground for the moment. But I will tell him you called."

Something in his response worried me right away. "Is he all right, Alfred?" My eyes closed, _tell me he's all right, please…_

"That remains to be seen." The cryptic answer sent a shiver through me.

"But where has he been? What's wrong? What are you not …?" I bit back on my words before I made a complete and utter fool of myself. Seven years. And the things I'd said to him. What right did I have to demand that I be treated like family?

"I'm sorry, Rachel," Alfred said, in a gentle tone. "I will tell him you called."

"Okay. Okay," I nodded. "Are you…?"

"Yes. I'm much better now." His voice gentled, "Be patient." He hung up.

He didn't want to see me. He didn't even want to talk to me. How did I have the gall to be surprised? I put the phone away, stood up, and went back to work. _He's alive. Be glad of that. _I reminded myself I had moved on long ago. I told myself I was happy for Alfred, and that was all. But over the next weeks every time they ran the story of his return, when I saw anything with the Wayne name on it, when I overheard people gossiping about him, I felt again the hope that he would forgive me, contact me and we could start over. I caught myself staring at pictures of him in the paper, cataloging every change I could see in him – his hair had darkened, his shoulders thickened, but his eyes were still guarded, his smile still calculated. I made myself not think about him, turning instead to further investigation of Crane and the deal I was sure he had made with Falcone. It was a slick arrangement, but I was determined to blow it apart.

I knew something was wrong when I got on the train that night. It's an instinct you develop as a woman alone in Gotham. As I got up to get out, I slipped my hand into my purse and gripped my taser. They grabbed me on the platform and I hid my fear, hitting back as they pushed me, and then they ran. Like an idiot, I thought it was me they were scared of. Then I turned around.

The scream came of its own will and I automatically fired the taser at – whatever it was facing me. He just pulled the darts out of his chest plate and tossed them aside. I was so panicked I was frozen to the spot. For all I was the hardened urban woman, I never expected to run into a six foot talking bat.

"Falcone sent them to kill you." The raw and raspy voice hurt my ears, but the words caught me up short. He threw down photos of Faden, (_"rattle the cages"_), and then he was gone. I was afraid I was losing my mind until the next morning when we heard that Falcone had been captured at the scene of a major drug delivery. We had him. At last we had him, and I didn't care who or what the Batman was, as long as he could pull off triumphs like this.

* * *

"Harvey!" the last sound is drawn out, a desperate shriek as I pulled helplessly at the ropes. Eight minutes left. _God, don't let him die without me even being able to say good bye, without being able to tell him…_

* * *

It was two weeks later that I ran into Bruce leaving the Palms restaurant in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel on Monroe. He was dressed in a fashionable 5th Avenue suit, and it was soaking wet. He walked right past me, only stopping when I said his name.

I was angry that he had shut me out. I was hurt and dismayed – and there were two, _two_ ridiculously gorgeous women calling to him from the car, right after his smarmy smile had faltered and he'd told me that this wasn't all he was. My disgust showed through and I wondered what I had ever thought he was going to be besides this. It didn't help that I had developed a healthy contempt for Gotham's bluebloods and their uselessness. So, I told him, nicely I suppose, to cram his words because his actions were so loud that I couldn't hear what he was saying.

I walked off, feeling self-righteous and smug – and fighting back tears. That was it. I wasn't going to think of him again. Life intervened, scarily – for Carl didn't come in for work, didn't call, didn't answer his cell or his door. I was amazed when, given that and what it meant, I still couldn't escape the knowledge when I woke up two days later, that it was Bruce's birthday. I sat on the edge of my bed and looked at the arrowhead, held its weight in my hand and decided that in spite of all my assurances to myself, I was still holding on. After work, I drove out to the Manor. They were preparing for a massive party and Alfred, who looked drawn and tired, asked me to stay. No, I told him, just give him this. _Just give him this last little thing I've saved, and then I can forget him, finally._

Bruce caught me before I could run away, and his appearance – wan and achy, which I read as hung over and exhausted from some threesome – just crawled all over me. "You enjoy your party, Bruce. Some of us have work to do." My eyes shut hard, remembering those words. The rest of that night was jumbled and nearly incoherent in my mind. Flashes of Crane, nightmare visions from the fear toxin, the dark, dank caverns, his masked face, the Narrows, the little boy, strong black clad arms seizing us, pulling us to safety.

Batman paused on the edge of the rooftop, I could see him on the dark canvas of my closed eyelids. I don't know why I begged him to tell me who he was. Maybe I saw something, some little thing that was familiar, but when he repeated my own words to me and the truth slammed home – it was too brief an instant to absorb it and then he had leapt off the building, leapt into the madness below, without a moment's hesitation, and I knew everything I had ever believed about him did not come close to who he really was.

In the smoking ruins of the Manor, I finally kissed him and it was as tender and true and earth-shattering as I had always known it would be. But there was the other truth and it could not be escaped. _The man I loved, the man who vanished – he never came back at all._ I said I was proud of him, and I meant it. I was awed, frightened, uncertain, and I had to get away from him before those emotions stole my judgment. So it was my turn to wear the controlled smile when we saw each other. Even when it was just he and I and Alfred, I seemed to be pretending so hard that I might break something inside myself. (I could hardly bear to be around him in public, he was so arrogant and obnoxious – I understood all the reasons why, and he eventually grew tired of trying to defend it.) I saw what it was doing to him, being Batman, I saw the exhaustion and the marks of violence on his body; I saw what it was doing for Gotham, and tried to accept that maybe there was something right about it all. And I could feel him watching me, wanting me (_now, after all these long years, now he wanted me_), even as he agreed that as long as this was necessary, there had to be walls between us. Six months passed, and through sheer force of will and ruthless savagery, he managed to drag Gotham back from the brink. But he showed no sign of stopping. His focus was sometimes terrifying. I drew further and further back, living only for work. Then I met Harvey.

He was everything I wished Bruce was. He was honest, genuinely kind, he got annoyed, he laughed easily. He was – human. He was charming, and driven, and he wanted all the things that I wanted. There was no reason for me not to fall in love with him. No reason, except that he wasn't Bruce. But I pushed that away, and together we worked late into the nights, slowly closing in on Maroni. I made myself keep my eyes off the windows after dark, while we poured over evidence and I knew Bruce was out there, breaking the law, risking his life, forcing Gotham to play by his rules.

I thought it was all going to be all right, that I knew where my life was headed. I was happy to be sitting across from Harvey at Chez Philipe's. We were so close to putting Maroni away, and Harvey was smiling at me – and then Bruce walked in, holding Natasha Rodchenko's hand and condescending to Harvey with his cool charm. I could have hated her easily enough just for being so beautiful. I could definitely have hated him for dropping lines like, "I was raised here and I turned out all right." while he grinned at me like he was daring me to respond. But then she had to go and speak intelligently, critiquing Gotham for tolerating him – and Harvey defended him, defended Batman.

"He doesn't want to do this forever. How could he?"

Bruce didn't move. His expression didn't change, and I couldn't keep myself from glancing over, catching his eyes on me with a look that set my heart racing, flooding my face with heat. I turned away, deliberately, desperately. I didn't want Harvey to see. He didn't, and when he took my hand I could feel Bruce's gaze scorching across our touch.


	3. Chapter 3

Seven Minutes

Seven minutes, and still no response. What had they done to him? Had he fought them? He would have fought against them and for all that he was a strong man, he wasn't Bruce – he could be overpowered. He could already be dead.

* * *

I didn't understand what was in Bruce's mind, throwing that party. I didn't believe him. How could I, as he helicoptered in with three models and gave that speech? He humiliated Harvey, who was so pure-hearted that he didn't even see it, and that infuriated me. I wasn't going to let him get away with it though. I knew what it really meant that he escaped to be on the balcony alone at the first opportunity. I saw him pitch the wine in his glass over the edge and stare out at the city. The tension in his body spoke volumes to me – the sun was setting and all he wanted was to be out there on the streets. Or so I thought.

"Do you remember that day you once told me about, when Gotham would no longer need Batman?"

Fire took my fingers, which tightened on my crossed arms. _Don't make me hope again. How can you make me hope again?_ "You can't ask me to wait for that."

With a slight movement, he shook his head, "It's happening now. Harvey is that hero..."

As he went on, I saw a light in his face that had been dark for so long, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. He meant it. He really meant it, and... Harvey came through the doors. His voice was shaking subtly.

"I've got to hand it to you, Wayne. You can throw a party. Thank you again. Can I," he gestured to me, even as his eyes stayed on Bruce, and I fought down a wave of guilt and confusion, "borrow Rachel for a minute?"

Bruce just nodded. But his intense gaze never left me as Harvey took my hand.

Harvey was really shook up. He must have seen something in the way our bodies spoke to one another, Bruce and me. I was shocked when he proposed, shocked and frightened and sad. I couldn't answer him.

"It's someone else, isn't it?" he asked me quietly, looking into my eyes and I wondered if I would be able to lie to him. "Just tell me it isn't Wayne, the guy's a –"

He never finished that sentence. Out of nowhere Bruce had him around the neck and for one terrible instant I thought he had finally snapped. The sight of his strength, so controlled and dangerous, so purposeful as Harvey faded into unconsciousness, made me tremble even as I shouted at him. His answer was a thousand times worse than what I had imagined.

"Joker's coming for him." He tipped Harvey into a closet, barring it. "Stay in here." And he was gone, closing the door firmly. I ran to it, needing to do something so I pulled it open, and gasped. A man in a horrible clown mask stepped in front of Bruce with a shotgun. I almost cried out – _No!_

"Hands up, pretty bo-"

Bruce moved too quickly for me to follow, punching the man, slamming the butt of the gun into his face, without even pausing in his stride, disassembling the gun with swift, sure movements. I shut the door, fell against it, and began to pray. Screams from the party guests made my eyes fly open. How long would it take Bruce to get into his armor? He needed time. I snuck a peek out the cracked door and my courage failed me at the sight of that perversion of a face. Joker seized a man, raised a knife...

I was out of the room, not letting myself think, "All right – stop!"

The instant he turned those cursed eyes on me, I knew how foolish I was. Criminals in an interrogation room, in a court room – these things I knew. This jackal-eyed fiend approaching me was something other, beyond. He sniffed around me and I flinched.

"You seem nervous. Is it the scars?"

Even his voice was unholy. He grabbed my face and pressed the knife against my skin and told me a story that stopped my heart. But then he did something stupid. He raised his arms, removing the knife. I lashed out with all my strength.

But he just cackled, delighted. From his doubled up position, he raised his eyes, and their hellish glare bit me. "A little fight in you. I like that." He raised the knife and came for me. _Oh, no, oh no, oh no..._ I was frozen, even as my mind screamed at me to move to hide to –

"Then you're going to love me!" The deep, raw voice freed me. I stumbled back and a black blur of pure animal force was plowing down Joker, the clowns. Each blow made me jerk, cringe – I had never before seen him unleashed. They had him down and I stepped forward, unthinking, trying to get to him, but hands were pulling at me, a slur of voices whispering desperately at me, "Are you mad? Stay back. Don't –" I saw a purple scrabbling movement to my left, but I couldn't take my eyes from Batman, from Bruce, as he fought. And then the hands hurt and a gun was pressed to my head, even as he turned to see me.

"Drop the gun!" he commanded.

Joker giggled. "Sure. You just take off your little mask and show us all who you really are."

Batman didn't move and with a swift movement Joker shot, the sound deafening me so that I didn't even hear my own scream. He swung me around and I looked down at the dizzying sight of the street far below.

"Let her go!"

"Very poor choice of words," and he shrieked with laughter as his hand released me.

I fell, a scream tearing from my throat, but I saw the dark shadow coming after me. As I slid off the glass and went into freefall, Bruce's hand caught me. His strength grappled with my tumbling body, pulled me close. But we were out of control, forty stories up and I knew we were going to die. I pressed my face to his armor, and thought I felt our fall slow for a moment, but we were spinning, and that couldn't be. But again, again – I caught glimpses of the cape billowing, stiff. He wrapped his arms around me, I felt his body straining and somehow as we slammed into the car, he was under me, taking the full brunt of the impact and my weight. I gasped for breath, opened my eyes to see his, hiding the pain. Impossibly, he had saved my life.

"Let's not do that again," I whispered.

His mouth crooked, just at the corner.

"Harvey," I said it like I just remembered he existed, which wasn't far from the truth, "is he – "

"He's safe." And it was Bruce's voice. Not Batman's.

"Thank you," I breathed.

* * *

That fall was just the beginning, and I knew when I hit the ground now, everything would be over. Bruce would come for me, and let Harvey die. And I would never, never be able to forgive him for that.

_6:00_

_5:59_

_5:58_

_5:57_


	4. Chapter 4

Six Minutes

Bruce hauled himself up, and standing on the dented hood of the car, fired a grapple up the building. "Get to safety," he ordered, the bestial growl back in his voice. "Stay there." He shot upwards, and I stood up shakily, then ran into the lobby to alert security, but they were already in a panic. The police were on their way. Maybe Bruce could stop him right here and now, and it would all be over.

But the people at the party said that when Batman dove out the window after me, Joker seemed to forget his original intentions, grinning while his eyes gleamed to see us falling. And then he just – left. He was out before Bruce got back up there, and long before the police arrived.

I was stuck trying to explain to Harvey how he'd ended up unconscious in the closet. I told him, and the police, the truth – Batman knew the Joker was on his way and had knocked him out to protect him. He said the arm around his throat hadn't been covered in black. I laughed nervously and said he just wasn't remembering straight. I didn't want to tell him the rest of what happened, but he heard it from the other witnesses. He turned on me, frightened, even a little angry.

"You confronted him? Are you crazy, Rachel? Why would you-"

"He was going to kill that man, Harvey!"

"So, you thought it'd be better if he killed you? Rachel!" But then he pulled me close and held me like he would never let go. I closed my eyes and buried my face in his neck. He was shaking, shaking as any normal man would to have nearly lost the woman he loves.

There were whispers going around the room, everyone wondering where Bruce was. Contempt filled the air when the little blonde reported he had hightailed it into a panic room, leaving his guests to the Joker's mercy. Harvey shot me a look, picking right back up on where we had left our former conversation – _just tell me it isn't Wayne..._

I didn't try to defend him, for it was impossible. This hatred was his protection. I would have to share it if I chose -

My thoughts cut off as the police officers in the room suddenly converged, speaking in tight whispers. Harvey and I moved as one to question them. They listened tensely to their radios. Judge Serrano and Commissioner Loeb – the Joker had murdered them. Gasps went around the crowd, fear blanching faces. No one was safe now. All I could think was, if Joker hadn't come for Harvey personally, if Bruce hadn't been there to stop him, then Harvey too would be in little pieces, or lying on the floor with his throat burnt out. The world had truly gone mad.

As we left, I caught Alfred, gave him a quick hug, and whispered to him to tell Bruce to contact me, to let me know he was all right. After seeing him dive into the Narrows, I think I had begun to believe there was nothing he couldn't handle, but this was different. I had never been so scared for him.

But I heard nothing. By the end of the next day I was frantic. Forced to hide my panic from Harvey while we worked side by side, I felt my veneer of control cracking. I looked at him, his square jaw, his quick, feeling eyes and thought of all the nights we had spent in gentle contentment. But when he took my hand, leaned over and kissed me softly I felt words straining my lips. _I'm so sorry. I do love you, but... _

_My god, Bruce, please have lived through this night._

My phone rang, and I didn't recognize the number. Without explanation, I walked out of the office, ignoring Harvey's questioning look.

"Hello?"

"Rachel."

Weakness and relief stole the strength from my muscles. "Bruce..." I breathed. "Are you okay? Where are you? What's hap–"

"I can't talk. It's not over yet, but it will be soon."

"That's not enough! Tell me – "

"No." And he hung up. I was furious, I was terrified, I was strangely comforted. I hoped his arrogance was justified.

Harvey walked down to my car with me, sliding in without thought, saying it was better if we drove together. It never even occurred to him for us to part in the middle of all of this. We made dinner in my tiny kitchen. We laid down in the darkness of my bed, and I felt like a traitor, a liar. I owed him better than this, at least to try to explain my confusion of emotions, which he took merely for fear, stress from my tumble out the window. I opened my mouth, but some strange superstitious part of me believed that if I spoke the truth out loud, it would somehow doom Bruce as he fought in the city's shadows. His life had been so haunted by tragedy, by happiness snatched away. No, when it was all over; it would be all over soon and then, then I could face Harvey, face his anger and loss, take it, like I deserved to. He kissed me and I felt his need, the urging desire to fight off death with love, but that I couldn't do. Not tonight, I told him softly. And guilt spiked through my stomach as he whispered gentle assurances and held me close, stroking my hair, kissing my forehead.

Tension hung over Loeb's memorial service the next day like a tightwire that would snap the second anyone set foot on it. I was waiting for that plunge. The Joker had announced he would kill the Mayor, and the fool had still insisted on speaking. He said he would look like a coward if he didn't. That he couldn't lead the city if he couldn't stand up in front of this threat. Maybe he was right. But at the time, all I knew was he had survived the day and Jim Gordon was dead on that stage at the end of LaSalle Street. I had a vision of the Joker as the kid on the block that captured people's pets and skinned them, picking at Gotham's leadership like it was a scab, painfully pulling off piece by piece by piece, exposing blood and viscera, rubbing dirt into the wound, hoping to see it swell with the pus of infection and disease.

I went with the MCU cops. They were shell-shocked, but grim and determined, and I wanted to help them. They needed the case ready to go. After this they wanted the Joker cold, put away for life. Death penalty even better. They wanted him to pay, so I started assembling evidence, working the preliminaries. As I went down to the alcove to get coffee, I found a forty-five year old cop, Jensen, a hard-bitten veteran of GCPD, sagged in a corner with tears running down his face. Without Jim, they seemed only half-alive.

I only started to worry about Harvey at sundown, and it was under an hour later that he called. He sounded strange, with a fierce edge to his voice as he told me he didn't want me there.

I shook my head, "Jim Gordon hand-picked these men."

"Gordon is gone!"

He was blaming himself somehow. "He vouched for them," I insisted.

"And he's gone," he said again, more slowly. I knew about the cops here that Harvey had investigated. My regard for Jim warred with Harvey's stark point. "The Joker's named you next, Rachel." It took a moment for those words to register and numbness crept up my legs as I glanced around at these people, their guns. Harvey cast about for some direction, some hope, "Jesus, is there anyone in this town we can trust?"

"Bruce," I whispered. "We can trust Bruce Wayne."

"Oh come on, Rachel," his voice rose, it even had the sound of hysteria hinting. "I know he's your friend, but –"

I closed my eyes, and almost laughed. Why not? I knew the Joker was laughing, but I had one over on him this time. "Trust me," I cut Harvey off. "Bruce's penthouse is the safest place in this city."

"Then you go there, and stay there. Don't tell anyone where you're going."

"Okay," I nodded.

"I love you," he said. My lips parted, but I couldn't make myself say it back. I hung up, turned – and started, for Anna was right behind me.

"I have to go," I told her. "Um, Harvey needs me, so I have to – "

She just nodded at me, came close and said softly, "He's right, Rachel." She held my eyes and I saw that she too had her doubts about the trustworthiness of the team. Somehow that comforted me. It shouldn't have, but the thought floated through my head, at least it's not paranoia if they're really out to get you. "You should let me take you," she continued in her near-whisper. "If you go alone, you'll be too exposed. I can protect you."


	5. Chapter 5

Five Minutes

"HELLO!" I scream. "Is anybody there?"

_5:00_

_4:59_

"Rachel?"

"Harvey!" My voice is raw and cracking. "Thank god!" Stupid. Stupid to have trusted Ramirez. Harvey was stupid to have taken the risks he had. Bruce was stupid to have let him. "Where are you?"

His voice is strangely calm. "I'm in a warehouse. I'm wired to a bunch of oil cans."

* * *

Alfred wasn't at the penthouse and I wondered briefly as I keyed in the security code where exactly Bruce ran his operations from. I moved through the slick minimalist rooms, so different from the old world charm of the Manor. I realized how much I missed the Manor. I had gone out to the construction site once with Bruce. He hadn't lied. It was going up just the same, brick by brick. That was how he built the edifices of his life, layer upon layer, skill by skill, task by task, relentlessly. I looked at his bed and thought about how many useless, beautiful women he had lain with there, or if he had at all. Did I truly believe that I knew him? That I could? I watched the streets below, the city lights stretching around me. What sort of man could do the things he had done? Face the depravity that was now eating Gotham? I could fight the mob, but the Joker – something demonic had broken through the fabric of night, and Bruce went after it, fierce and unstoppable. I was grateful for him. I was frightened of him.

My cell buzzed in the next room. I ran to it. Harvey was furious, words tumbling out of him. "Joker has us. He's broken him. He's broken the Batman."

One a.m. Two a.m. I didn't try to sleep, not that my buzzing thoughts and adrenaline would have let me. I had no reason to think Bruce would come back home that night. But he walked in, incongruously dressed in a neatly pressed three-piece suit, like he'd just come from a board meeting. Mask over mask over mask. He said nothing as he walked up beside me and followed my gaze out the windows.

"Harvey called," I said quietly. "He said the Batman was going to turn himself in."

His face was still, "What choice do I have?"

"Do you really think that will stop the Joker from killing more people?"

I caught it in his eyes, just a flicker, just a ghost of doubt, or remorse, or – something. No one knew how to bury a weakness like Bruce. "Maybe not," and his deep voice was low. "But I have enough blood on my hands. And I've seen now, what I would have to become to stop men like him." A frission of some unknown emotion went up my spine. Hidden deep within his dark gaze I saw that thing he described, that thing he denied he could become – it already lived somewhere in his core. The glimpse of it almost made me step back, made me want to run. But then it was gone, and in its place was the boy I had once known, just as hidden, just as denied – the other face of the coin. Bruce's body was seemingly relaxed, his hands in his pockets, but I saw them balled into fists. He turned to me, coming closer. "When you said if there was no more Batman, we could be together – did you mean it?"

I struggled to answer, grappling with the realities I had just discovered. But the truth was the truth. "Yes," I whispered.

His eyes softened. He touched my face and I was amazed that hands which could do so much damage could be so gentle. Drawing me close, he bent his head and I tasted his lips in a kiss that promised impossible things. It was brief, limited – he still had work to do. He released me, walked away from me.

"Bruce," I had to say it out loud, so that I would know it fully. He paused, looked at me. "If you turn yourself in, they won't let us be together." And his eyes which had always hidden so much tragedy told me clearly that he knew the truth, and would accept it rather than see anyone else die for his secret. No matter how much it hurt him, or me. He trusted me to have the strength to bear it.

* * *

"Listen to me," I try to keep my voice calm. Though I hate to say it, it is his only chance. "They told me, only one of us was going to make it."

He takes the news and I can actually hear relief in his voice. "Okay, okay, Rachel, it's okay, they're coming for you."

Against my will, for I know it will only cause me pain, my arms tense and pull at the tight bonds as I say, "Look around. Is there anything sharp?" It's not okay, none of this is okay. It should be Harvey, not me. It is Harvey people believe in, it's him that still has a chance to save Gotham.

_Goddamn you, Bruce..._

* * *

I stood alone in his crystalline bedroom. From here Gotham looked beautiful, a testament to human ambition, a sea of light, but I knew the rotting death that the city harbored. I knew I was about to see Gotham eat alive its last hope. Stepping close to his bed, I remembered my despair when I thought he was lost to me forever. Carefully, I unzipped my dress and let it drip off my body onto the floor. I raised the sheets and slipped between them, laid my head on his pillows and let his scent surround me as I closed my eyes and waited for him.

_

* * *

__3:00_

_2:59_

_2:58_

"Talk me through what's happening with you," I would stay steady. I have to believe he can get out of this, that somehow we will both live and find some kind of happily ever after. We'd leave Gotham, we'd get far, far away from here.

I hear the muffled sounds of him struggling, a clang, sputtering – silence.

"Harvey? Harvey!"

* * *

It was hours later that I heard Bruce come into the room. He kicked off his shoes, turned to the bed – and stopped short when he saw me. I gazed up at him and neither of us said a word as seconds slid by in the shadows. He moved at last, slowly shrugging off his jacket as he came closer. He unbuttoned his shirt, all the time keeping his eyes close on me. But as he dropped the shirt, I sat up with a tiny, choked sound, for I saw writ upon his skin every struggle, every injury he had endured, and it shocked me, pain creasing my brow. I searched his dark eyes. He was so accepting of what he would give to Gotham that it took him a moment to understand why horror was dawning on my face. He came to the edge of the bed and I rose to my knees, clutching the sheet to cover my unmarked, protected body as if I was ashamed of the safety I had lived in while he ... I was stunned in the light of this brutal truth, and my trembling hand reached out, brushing my fingertips over the scar arcing across the right side of his abdomen. There was a fresh wound, messily stitched, on his left arm, two inches long and jagged. I tried to speak and he shook his head, just slightly. _Don't, it doesn't matter now._ But it did. He would go to prison, into the yard with killers that he had put away. These wounds were just the beginning, and he knew I knew it. _I can take it_, his eyes said. And there was Gotham, spying on us through the surrounding windows, reminding me how lost it, how lost I, would be without him.

I clung to him then and he held me tightly. His breath was long and slow and I felt his lips touch my shoulder, my neck. He pulled back, caressed my face with wondering fingers. And then he kissed me. He kissed me as he never had before, a lifetime of passion stored up behind his control and his pain and his plans, all of which he let fall away. To feel his hands on me at last, sliding over my skin, tangling in my hair; to arch against him and feel him shudder made everything that had passed, every horror that still waited, recede. We were safe in this moment, cocooned.

The dawn broke over us, terrible and perfect.

_

* * *

__1:14_

_1:13_

_1:12_

"Harvey!"

His voice is slurred, unnatural. I can hear him spitting something from his mouth, "I'm trying! I'm …"

* * *

I could see the time on the clock and closed my eyes against it, listening to the slow and powerful beat of Bruce's heart. The warmth of his body against mine was all I had ever wanted, all I would ever have. But nothing could stop the minutes ticking by. We rose, dressed. We argued in few words, and in the end I had to bow to the logic that forced me to stay in the penthouse. Joker still wanted my life, so I would watch the press conference remotely.

Bruce smiled at me the moment before he left; a real, fragile smile that reminded me of the days when we were children, innocent of the world's horrors.

His voice was rough and strong as he held me close, and whispered, "Don't be afraid."

I nodded at him as his hands slid away from me. For him, I would do anything, face anything, be anything.

But thirty minutes later I stood in the living room and watched as Harvey tried to argue his case in the court of public opinion. They would not yield. My body went cold as I heard the words, "I am the Batman," coming from the wrong mouth. I watched them handcuff Harvey and saw Bruce standing by, mute.

Everything went numb. Part of me wanted to fall on my knees, curl up on the floor and cry like I had when I was a young woman. Part of me wanted to burn the penthouse, the whole building, everything that was his, to the ground. But when I regained control, everything was clear. I did not know him. I never had. His secret depths, his irrational need, he could never see me, he could never see _anything_ with them in the way. He had lied to me, maybe he'd been lying to himself, with all his fine words and good intentions to give Gotham a hero with a face. To think of what sort of person could use Harvey in this way, throw him out there as bait for that monstrosity, the whirlpool of chaos that was sure to blast him apart. Even Gotham meant nothing to him if he would let Harvey sacrifice himself this way.

And Harvey – who was he that he would volunteer himself for this? Harvey was the one, all along. It had been Harvey who had the truest strength, the ability to give everything for what was right. And I had betrayed him with this selfish, cold, calculating – I didn't even have a word for what Bruce was.

I found a piece of stationary. My hand was perfectly steady as I wrote. _I am going to marry Harvey Dent… I no longer believe the time will come when you won't need Batman._

I gave it to Alfred, hugged him, knowing I would have to give him up too. I never wanted to see anything associated with Bruce Wayne ever again, and I found Alfred's rationalizations pathetic, his defense abhorrent. There was only madness in Bruce's wake.

Flying across town, I found Harvey in his cell as they were taking him out.

Over the fierce applause of the cops that reminded me of what I was about to lose, I begged him, "Harvey, tell everyone the truth."

He just grinned at me. "Heads I go through with it." He tossed me the coin. They shut the doors on him. It was the last time I ever saw him.

Anna Ramirez came to my side, urged me gently away, offered me her office to listen to events as they unfolded on the police radio. In my imagination, listening to those sounds, there were flames and blood and cackling laughter far in the background.

Then it was all over. The Joker was captured. Harvey was safe. Jim Gordon was even alive. Everything was going to be all right at last. I sat drained and limp, and when Anna gently pulled at my arm, I went without thinking.

"Come on, Rachel. I'll take you to him."

* * *

"Harvey, just in case – I want to tell you something."

"Don't!" his voice is desperate. "Don't think that way! They're coming for you!"

"I know!" I no longer have control over my voice either. "But I don't want them to. I don't want to live without you. I do have an answer for you." My eyes close. He will know this at least. It is nothing, it is everything, "It's yes."

_0:17_

_0:16_

_0:15_

There is a crash over the speaker, and Harvey's voice screaming, "NO! Why are you here? Why did you come for me? NO! NOOOOOO…"

My eyes open with a gasp. I stare at the speaker, the clock…

_0:09_

_0:08_

Everything –_ running in the garden as children, spinning clumsily to bad pop music on the gymnasium floor, lying, laughing on his bed, slapping his face, seeing him dive into the Narrows, feeling him catch me as I fell, his arms holding him in the warm dawn light_ – it all flashed through my mind in an instant.

"Okay," I nod. "It's okay, Harvey. It's okay."

It truly is. Something releases in my chest. In the final moment, he is doing the right thing. The heroic thing. He is letting me go – and the only thing stronger than my terror now is my faith in him.

_0:04_

_0:03_

I have to be equal to it, so my words are for Harvey, for Gotham, just as his actions are. My last bit of trust is spent on Alfred, that he will have the wisdom to destroy what I left behind in my ignorance and anger.

_0:01_

"Harvey, somed –"

_0:00_

As the heat blasts across me, and my sight burns, my mind has one last moment, and it is for him.

_Bruce._

**The End**

Please feed the authors – be kind and leave a review.


	6. Chapter 6

Thank you to everyone who has read "Ten Minutes". I really appreciate your kind feedback. Several people have asked about whether I will write anything else in this fandom, so I'm going to take this opportunity for a little shameless self-promotion. I have several other Batman stories already posted and am in process with a new one. Just click on the E Kelly link to find the page with other stories listed. I would love to hear from any of you who read my other work. There's a list and descriptions at the bottom of this page. But first...

I am starting an archive of Batman fan fiction and I will be seeking authors and recommendations. Don't be shy about going ahead and pointing me towards any great stories you know of, or of alerting me to your own work. Obviously this will be colored by my own tastes, which are heavily into dark and tragic. ;) I'm hoping to find really high quality work. This site is fantastic as a clearinghouse of all the fic out there, but I'd love to put together a collection of well-written material. It's going up by August 10. Gotham dash noir - look it up!

My stories are not specifically set in the movie universe; however they all share a very similar tone and style to _Batman Begins_ and _The Dark Knight_. They also explore some of the same themes and tend to be fairly tragic, but always with a few bright lights of hope thanks to heroism and courage.

Four of the stories are in the Gotham Noir universe, which is my own creation.

**Fall to Grace** takes place barely a year after Bruce Wayne has started his crusade. When a crime lord he has just apprehended is acquitted by a Grand Jury, Bruce seeks to find the corrupt power that freed this vicious murderer. He finds himself battling a powerful politician who has manipulated Gotham's underworld for years as part of a network of global power plays. Angered by the Batman's interference, the Senator brings in a skilled covert operative to discover the vigilante's identity in an effort to manipulate him as well. In the course of his investigation Bruce meets a mysterious woman entangled in the Senator's web of crime. A claustrophobic tale of isolation, murder and redemption that delves deep into the formative tragedy of Bruce Wayne's life.

**Regions of Sorrow** is a one-shot following an ordinary Gotham teenager, exploring what it would really be like to live in Gotham City – something not for the faint of heart. Batman appears as a character only briefly, but his legend, as well as the Joker's, is vividly explored.

**Living in the Red Light** delves into the world of Batman's allies. Tess Henry is the oldest whore in Gotham, a madam in the hellish East End neighborhood who provides Batman with intelligence from the streets. When one of her girls is brutally beaten, Batman helps the young streetwalker find the meaning of courage.

**A Mortal Melody of Blood and Memory** is in process with 9 chapters up so far. Eight years into his crimefighting career, Batman has become a powerful force, but even with his protégés Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon at his side, isolation and the costs of his war on crime are weighing heavily on him. Two-Face escapes from Arkham under mysterious circumstances on the eve of a global summit of the world's largest and most voracious multinational corporations, at a time when Gotham is under terrorist threat which has sparked dangerous corruption amongst US intelligence forces. Bruce must try to hold Gotham together even as his own world is blown apart by the tragic return of a lost love. This story is a direct sequel to **Fall to Grace**.

I have decided to suspend A Mortal Melody, pending a massive rewrite. I knew it wasn't in any kind of finished form when I started posting, but I hoped putting it up would give me motivation to power through the stuff that needed to be written. Then along came The Dark Knight, and I find the tone and atmosphere of this piece really mediocre beside that film - plus it's given me a few new ideas. This will be back, hopefully shortly!

Besides the Gotham Noir tales, I also have **Legacy of Allies**, a short one-shot that takes place when Jim Gordon runs into Bruce Wayne on the balcony at Wayne Manor on the day of Dick and Barbara's wedding. Has Jim known the truth all along – or not?

Finally, there's **Here's Looking at You, Red**, which is an odd fic I put together when I was watching _Casablanca_ and realized that with just a little tweak, you could have a fantastic Batman Elseworlds story. It's impossible to improve on _Casablanca_'s dialogue, so I didn't even try. The story ends up being as much an exploration of that great movie as it is a Batman story. America has been conquered by the fascist, genocidal Reichsarmy, but rebel leader Bruce Wayne is about to slip from their grasp. All he has to do is escape from Bludhaven with stolen letters of transit before Major Dent can trap him. Unfortunately, the letters are in the possession of Dick Grayson, and he's not happy to see Barbara, the woman who hollowed out his heart, enter his club on the arm of the legendary Wayne.

Keep writing and reading!

Thanks!

E


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